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FHWA Announces Greater Flexibility for Street Designers

FHWA Announces Greater Flexibility for Street Designers

2016-05-24

Recently, the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) announced that the list of “Controlling
Design Criteria” on lower-speed streets would go from 13 to two. This announcement
will dramatically ease federal design standards for many neighborhood streets
and roads and provide greater flexibility for transportation planners,
including landscape architects, in designing multimodal transportation
projects, Complete Streets, and other urban transportation networks.

In 1985, the agency established “13 Controlling Design
Criteria” in an effort to create a simple, hard-to-break list of basic
guidelines for street design. If communities wanted to design outside these
criteria by, for example, reducing lane width to add a bike lane, street trees,
and other traffic calming devices, they were forced to apply for an exception,
which could be an arduous and time-consuming process. After a thorough review,
FHWA determined that most of these guidelines were only appropriate for rural
roads, freeways, and other high-speed roads. For federally-funded streets with
traffic speeds below 50 miles per hour (mph), only “design loading structural
capacity” (how much weight a bridge can bear) and “design speed” (how fast
traffic is expected to be able to move safely) will now be regulated.

Last fall, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued the proposal to ease the design guidelines and requested
comments, receiving 164 comments on the issue. During the comment period ASLA
applauded FHWA’s efforts in removing barriers that have prevented many
transportation planners and designers, like landscape architects, cities, and
communities of all sizes from designing and building transportation networks
that are safe and accessible for all users, including bicyclists and
pedestrians. ASLA also noted that the proposed rule would allow for flexibility
to create narrower lanes, which provides greater opportunity for bike lanes,
pedestrian walkways, and integrated vegetation management projects.

Learn more about FHWA’s Revisions to the Controlling Criteria for Design and
Documentation for Design Exceptions here.